


No Way in Hell

by tanyart



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adventures of the Indiana Jones/The Mummy sort, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Archaeology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1298335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/pseuds/tanyart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are missing temples, ancient mysteries, and lost civilizations to be uncovered, Eren would say.  Jean wants none of that if he can help it. (An AU about adventurers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Way in Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Me and Lauren once went on a lengthy twitter brainstorming jam and the idea of it just stuck for AGES with me.  Most of it is inspired by our conversation [here](http://tearitar.tumblr.com/post/77835445445/).  Thank you, Lauren!!!  I hope you don't mind me borrowing some choice archaeological mumbo jumbo YOU ARE THE EXPERT HERE. I've tried. This is all yours.

The excavation site is a good three meters deep after a week of nonstop digging.  It is the most beautiful rectangular pit Jean has ever seen and he is standing right in the middle of it, covered head to toe in dirt and pleased as punch.  After so many rejected grants and days spent as a guest lecturer to amass a treasure trove of favors, he is finally living the dream—in the middle of a desert, where the nearest village is at least thirty miles away, and where he is most likely to get shot if he so much as drinks from the wrong well.

But for the first time ever, Jean feels like an honest-to-God archaeologist.  A proper one.  Not some kind of gun-wielding, treasure-seeking, half-crazed  _adventurer_.

Which, he mulishly thinks as he wipes his sweaty forehead and rolls up his shirtsleeves, is such a goddamn outdated notion nowadays.  Faddishly romantic and completely suicidal.

Jean could go on, but he hears the deep hum of an approaching vehicle.  One of his hired laborers shouts at him from above, gesturing, and Jean doesn’t even have to climb up the ladder to see who it could be.  He believes in his fair share of superstitions, a complimentary sentiment in his field of work, but there’s also just the hard truths he faces of a regular basis—the first being that there will  _always_  be rival archaeologists or clingers and spies, just wanting in on his research and profit.

“Fuck,” he says aloud in the safety of his pit before he heaves himself up the wobbling ladder. 

He takes a good look over the edge, squinting against the glare of the sun, and spots the jeep coming to a stop some distance away from the site.  Jean can count three heads, but it’s the red scarf that gives the group away.  He scrambles the rest of the way up, incredulous and deeply offended. 

Give him rival archaeologists.  Give him spies.  Give him anything but half-crazed suicidal adventurers.

“No,” Jean says, walking towards them.  “Oh,  _no_.  Not again.  You guys can’t be here.  This is  _my_  site.”

 “Hello, Jean,” Armin says from the back of the jeep, and Jean would describe Armin’s expression as sheepish, but the fact that he’s here with  _Eren_  and  _Mikasa_ means that Jean  _can_  and  _will_  describe him any way he wants and it’ll be nothing good.

And speaking of nothing good, Eren is the first one to meet him, banishing a scrap of faded cloth that will no doubt be the death of Jean sooner or later.

“Jean, take a look at this,” Eren says without even the faintest hint of a greeting, never mind that Jean had been yelling at them to  _go away_.  He waves the cloth in Jean’s face, holding it by the corners, and explains, quite unnecessarily, “It’s a map.”

“Really?  We completed the same doctorate so I assumed you could’ve confirmed it yourself at least,” Jean drawls, but he greedily looks over the map, making a quick mental catalog of its rather old appearance before dragging his eyes back to Eren.  “What does this have to do with me?”

Eren lets out an impatient sigh and points his finger at a large, conspicuous symbol on the map.  It’s not quite  _an X-marks-the-spot_ , but Jean gets the feeling of fluctuating emotions, a weird mixture of excitement and frustration.  He tries to stamp it down.

It’s the symbol of a temple, mysteriously vanished a thousand years ago, and around it are landmarks like the village thirty miles away and the few wells Jean has learned to not drink from.

“Found this map a while ago and I heard you were in the area doing work,” Eren says, intent and earnest like he expects Jean to do something.

“You asshole!” Jean shouts, ignoring the look Mikasa throws him.  He is  _furious_ , almost enough to not notice how fetching she looks in her khaki trousers, knee-high boots, and hunter vest.  Eren is practically wearing the same thing, minus the scarf, but it is  _so_  less flattering on him. “Where the hell did you get that?”

Because, really, it’s not like Jean had spent months piecing together bits of forgotten history and old legends from various incomplete textbooks, or weeks spent translating the native folklore, or all that time to be able to  _learn_  and  _speak_ the native tongue.  It’s the work of years, finding the funds and finally being accosted by Erwin Smith, enigmatic war hero with a strange romantic ideology for the preservation of artifacts.     

“I’d tell you but that’ll only make you angrier,” Eren says, the asshole who will later admit to winning the map from the locals by placing a bad bet on a camel race.

“Is it even authentic?” Jean says, raising his voice.  “I’m expecting a few pieces of broken pottery, maybe a skeleton or two.  For once just let me have that.  There isn’t going to be an entire missing temple. How do you even know the map’s real?”

“Well,  _you’re_  here,” Eren says, lowering the map away for the first time. “And  _I’m_  here.  We can both be right.” 

Jean goes quiet, inexplicably at a loss for words.  He starts to think of how Eren succeeds in receiving funding for his own research, how he must go into some filthy rich connoisseur’s office with the burning conviction of a hundred suns, a pure drive to discover lost histories—even when his stubborn and crass attitude is something of a downside.  Eren always, without fail, manages to convince  _someone_  to believe his wild theories.

The silence drags on until Armin clears his throat.

“We  _did_  have the map carbon dated,” he adds, much to Jean’s relief.

“And?” Jean says, turning away from Eren, who huffs.

“The results aren’t in yet, but Eren thought we should just go ahead.”

Jean groans.  “Unbelievable.”

“I have a good feeling about this,” Eren says, determined.

“Oh my god.   If grants ran on good feelings and determination I’d be rich enough to discover Atlantis.”

“Not with your level of pessimism,” Eren snorts.  “And for the record, Atlantis is-“

“Nope!” Jean says, covering his ears, dirt stained hands and all.  “We’re not having that old debate again.  I’m not listening to another word you say!  Please leave.”

He starts to walk back to the excavation pit but Eren grabs his arm and pushes the map into his face.

“The ink, Jean!” Eren shouts, sounding aggravated. “And the cloth! Just feel it! It’s a kind of leathery thing, right?”

“Leathery thing.  Big words, professor,” Jean says, frantically trying to ease the map away from his face.  He catches a whiff of the cloth, a very faint sting in his nose, and the cloth is a tough kind of fabric, soft enough to fold and keep, and he had already known from the first look it had the sheen of oil to preserve it.

“Jean!  You’re the expert in this area.  You did the research.”

And it’s true.  Jean knows everything from the main trade import a thousand years ago to the trends in dye popularity during that time.  He can trace how the cloth had been one of the major imports, made from a foreign animal, and he can guess how the dye had come from the bark of a native tree by the faded color and smell.  He can’t confirm for sure at the moment, but there are just too many coincidences to ignore and Eren is standing too close for comfort.

Jean yanks his arm out of Eren’s grasp.

“You can…. take a look,” he mutters, gesturing to the dig site.

Eren doesn’t quite smile at him, only looks more full of conviction and self-righteous, if possible.  He does, however, leave the map in Jean’s hands.  And also his hands in Jean’s hands, squeezing them, bold and brazen as usual.  “Thanks.”

The sun is shining too bright and Jean may be dehydrated.  He almost doesn’t catch the unhealthy gleam in Eren and Mikasa’s eyes. 

“How deep’s the hole?” Mikasa asks, ducking further into the jeep.  Audible rummaging could be heard, something like crates.  Crates full of something dangerous and everything Jean probably will not like.

Eren lets go of Jean’s hands and jogs over to the pit, peering down.  “About three meters!”

Jean sees Armin start to open his mouth, about to say something placating, but Jean doesn’t have a doctorate and a pair of functional eyes for nothing.  Mikasa hops out of the jeep, holding a pack of dynamite and a coil of wire, calm as an approaching storm.

Jean would never consider taking on Mikasa even for a second so he whirls around to face Eren, grabbing him by the collar.

“There is no way I’m going to let you blow up my dig site,” he says, low and dangerous.  “No way in  _hell_.”

* * *

“Alright,” says Jean, after the smoke and dust clears.  He stares at the dark pit, hearing the faint echo is his despondent voice.  After a rough calculation of the frequency of sandstorms and desert area growth over the years, Mikasa had estimated to blow another five meters deeper with her dynamite.  And he let her.  “So you blew a little bit of a thousand year old temple roof off.  No big deal.  That’s no potential curse to be worried about.”

Eren hands him a torch.  “You didn’t strike me as the superstitious sort, Jean.”

“I’m not,” he replies, turning it on and letting the light shine down.  He can see the inside floor of the temple, along with the bits of stone roofing that had fallen through.  “I’m talking about Levi.” Levi, their mutual collections manager and a head archiver of sorts. If head archivers are prone to wielding duel pistols and piloting biplanes on occasion.  “He’ll curse us, I just know it.”

“…You don’t know.  Maybe not,” Eren says, sounding as dubious as Jean has ever heard him.  He takes out a length of rope from his side holster, tossing the hook for Mikasa to anchor.  “Anyway, it’s only a  _little_  bit of the roof. You probably would have done the same eventually.”

Jean watches Eren loop the rope through his carabiners, shaking his head.  

“Why can’t I ever have a normal excavation,” he complains, taking the rope from Eren’s hand.  He roughly shoves Eren around and finishes tying the bow knot, tugging it secure.  “You know.  Simple and boring.  A tiny ancient pot here, a bit of an old stone tool there. “

Eren scoffs, but he stares at Jean for a moment too long before smiling, wry, “Maybe this time I won’t have to rescue you from a group of angry locals.”

“That was Mikasa who save  _us_ ,” Jean corrects.  “Also Armin, being all diplomatic.”

“Details,” Eren says, giving the rope a test hop.  “I convinced them.  You coming or what?”

“And miss watching you set off a thousand booby traps?” Jean retorts, adjusting his own length of rope.

But booby traps or not, Jean lets Eren shine the light for him while he makes the first jump into the temple.

**Author's Note:**

> I have belatedly discovered that carbon dating wasn't even a thing until the 1950s so I apologize for the anachronism! There will be no more terrible carbon dating jokes.


End file.
